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I make my way toward it, arms stretched forward, drowsiness still lingering despite the fear.
And then.
Long strands of hair brush against my face, a sickeningly intimate caress. A smal , involuntary shriek slips out of my mouth. Like walking into a spiderweb, but so much worse; strands of hair that don't dissipate on contact but drag upward along my face, across my cheekbones, along the sides of my nose, intertwining with my eyelashes and eyebrows, wispy fi ngers feeling my face like a blind person reading Brail e.
It takes everything in me not to fl ail away at the hair. I drop to the fl oor and look up. Someone is asleep at the sleep- holds. Abs.
Her long black hair fl ows down like a waterfal of disease, her white face looming above it like a sickened moon. The rest of her body is hidden over in the ceiling shadows, creating the il usion of a hovering, decapitated head.
I shut my eyes, count the seconds, will ing her not to stir. I listen. Nothing but a faint, short creak of wood from across the room. I open my eyes, see the books on the fl oor, hundreds of them shoved roughly off the shelves, piled up at the bottom of the bookshelves like the canted slope of snow after an avalanche.
Phys Ed is dangling upside down on a bookshelf, asleep.
His legs are tucked into the top shelf, his shoes wedged into a smal opening to support him. He has found sleep in this shelf- turned- cot.
And not just him. As the room brightens, I see Crimson Lips a few shelves down, also hanging off the top shelf. And there is Gaunt Man, his belt looped around an air duct, dangling from the ceiling.
Fril y Dress is tied to the center chandelier; she rotates in a slow spin, the chandelier pul ed askew by her weight. all the hunters.
They came here last night. I'm not sure why.
I was sleeping this whole time in the hornets' nest.
Trying not to panic, I survey the room. The room is turning from black to gray by the second, the columned light concentrating into a sharper, longer beam. And then I see the pile of equipment by the circulation desk, SunCloaks, pairs of shoes, packs of SunBlock Lotion, and syringes fi l ed with adrenaline boosters. Equipment and accessories for the Hunt.
They're here for the Hunt. To sleep during the day. To be safely away from the Institute as it goes into lockdown. The library is the starting point.
But of course it is. How could I not have realized this before?
The sunbeam intensifi es and lengthens; a dread sense of inevi-tability encloses around me like a noose tightening around my neck. And then, just like that, I realize what wil happen in the next few moments.
First, the slumbering hunters will feel a slight burn, an irritation that will intensify as the light begins to singe their eyelids.
Perhaps the effects of the light is already upon them, a nausea taking over their insides, a burn on their skin. They wil awaken and fl ee from the light, frothing at the mouth.
They will run screaming and hissing to the other end of the library, far from that light.
And there they will remain, cowering from the stil bothersome sunbeam. They will wonder— for they will have hours to talk among themselves before nightfal — about the young male hunter who lodged in here, how he was able to survive. The young hunter who never complained about his lodging, about any problems with the lighting, who always seemed to carry about him the odor of the hepers, come to think of it.
I shake my head, snapping myself out of my morbid thoughts.
Because there's still time for action. I just need to plug up the hole.
And quickly. I step careful y away from Abs' dangling body, walk down the length of the room.
“Ah, there you are. ”
I spin around. The Director is gazing at me, dangling upside down, halfway down an aisle. “We were looking for you earlier.
Couldn't fi nd you. Or the lovely girl. Needed to let you know that the hunters were assembling in the library for the Hunt.
Anyway, looks like someone was able to tel you. ”
“We were—”
“No, no, no need to explain to me. Just glad you were able to get in here before dawn. ” He stares at me, then behind me, gazing around. Bemusement creeps into his eyes. “Did you leave the door open? Awful y bright in here. ”
“No, I—”
“You seem ner vous. What's the matter?”
“No, no. It's not ner vous ness. I'm just excited, is all . It's the Hunt, after all . Starts in just a few hours. Five, six hours? Not sure what time it is. ”
“More like four hours. Heard that a vicious storm's coming.
Wil be darkening earlier than usual. ” He looks at me. “Don't lose your head. Keep your wits about you. ”
“I know. But it's hard not to get excited. People would kil to be in my spot. ”
“Would they now?”
“Yes. I suppose they would. ”
“Good,” he says, nodding. “That's the mind- set you need. ”
His eyes fl ick downward to my left. “The FLUNs are under me. Thought it best to keep them away from the others. ”
“Of course. ” The attaché cases sit a couple of feet away.
Next to them, the Scientist's journal.
“Couldn't sleep earlier. So I started to read that journal I found on a table. ” His eyes pour into mine. “Tel me, one thing I don't understand—”
Right at that moment, a feline howl shatters the quiet. It's Abs.
The beam has suddenly sharpened with a violent purity, striking her dangling hand and gouging a hole in her palm.
The smel of burning fl esh, then an eruption of ful - throated screams and howls around me as the others awaken.
Abs's eyes are snapped open in raw pain. I turn around.
The Director is still dangling, his eyes looking right at me.
His eyes fl ick to the side; he sees the beam shooting straight and pure behind me, and me standing right in front of it, unfazed. Something else enters his eyes besides searing pain: a suspicion, a realization, an accusation.
I've been found out, by this beam of light. Of all the things I imagined would be my undoing, never would I have thought it'd be a light beam. I always felt it would be a sneeze or a yawn or a cough that would inevitably expose me.
Something beyond my control, a bodily betrayal.
But not this: not something so simple, so pure, beautiful even.
Funny how that is, how it's the beautiful things in life that betray you in the end.
I pedal backward; my feet hit up against the FLUNs, and I trip over them, sending them careening across the fl oor. I glance up. The Director is gone. More screams, the heavy thumps of bodies landing, furniture scraped roughly aside, the scrabbling of nails and claws on the wooden fl oor. Then silence.
I pause, waiting for some noise. Then I hear it: a long, meandering howl. From the east wing. They've all fl ed there, away from the beam. Then the sound of whispers, col ective and intense, accusa-tory. A single pitched wail, now brimming not with fear but with craving, fused with a charged desire. It's quickly joined by a chorus of others.
Panic grips my heart, even as I start sprinting. They're regrouping; they're realizing. I have to move.
I leap to my feet. The beam is now ful strength, a tightrope stretching to the far wal .
Something moves toward me— a fl ash of movement— leap-frogging over furniture and shelves. Just a blur, then it pounces from the top of a shelf with shocking speed. Abs, fl ying through the air with hideous speed. At me.
I close my eyes. I am dead.
Then a dreadful scream explodes out, fol owed by the sound of sizzling, the singe of smoke. The sunbeam. She landed right on top of it, and it's burned a deep canyon across her chest. She's on the fl oor, on the other side of the beam, arm pressed against her eyes, her mouth torqued in a twisted cry of agony, her upper lip writhing atop her lower lip.
I scurry to my feet, scrambling across the fl oor. An upended table trips me; even as I fal , I catch from the corner of my eye the hazy shapes of others running down the hal way toward me, arms clamped over their eyes, their speed almost obscene. Their yelping, hissing screams stroke against my ear drums like razor- sharp fi ngernails.
I hit the fl oor, my head knocking against something hard and metal ic. Blood pours out; instantly the snarls ratchet up to the level of the insane.
They leap at me, strangely synchronized, left arms splayed across their faces, right arms pointing at me, razor nails fi rst. And still synchronized together, their snarls turn to screams as they fal into the beam. As one, they are propel ed backward.
An awful, fetid smel of rotting fl esh and burned skin hits my senses. I think to move, but I'm blinded by the blood pouring into my right eye from the cut above my eyebrow. I swipe away the blood with my sleeve; and as I do, I see the hunters getting back to their feet, their actions herky- jerky with desire. My blood; they're driven mad by the fresh, overpowering scent of my blood. They come at me again, but wiser now. Instead of trying to punch through the beam, they're scaling up the wal s and crossing the room by way of the ceiling.
That gets me moving, adrenaline surging through me so fast, I almost miss it. A FLUN attaché case. It's what I banged my head on. And under the case, the Scientist's journal. Without a thought, I grab it by its twine, the feel of it like the thin tail of an emaciated rat, and stuff it down my shirt. I can feel the wooden spine hubs jutting into my stomach. Then I grab the attaché case and start hauling, the case swinging in my hand. The howls and yips are breaking all around me now, those of pain and those of hot desire.
I sprint for the doors, through the narrow corridor leading into the foyer.
And then.
One of them— Phys Ed— drops right in front of me, a fal en icicle of black ice. I pummel through him a mil isecond later, catching him by surprise. He reaches for me as I sprint past and brushes my shoulder (did he cut me? did he cut me?), spinning me around.
And he comes at me even as I'm still midair, my arms fl ailing, attaché case still in hand.
The attaché case catches him fl ush, breaking his face as it snaps open, the FLUN inside fl ying through the air. The FLUN skitters across the fl oor.
The impact dazes him momentarily. I dive for the FLUN, grabbing it even as he grabs me by the ankle and starts pul ing me in, with enough force to almost wrench my leg out of the hip socket. I feel his nails puncturing through my jeans, piercing my skin.